Ancient woodland is already being irreparably damaged by development

Weaknesses in protection mechanisms for ancient woods must be reviewed.

7:01AM GMT 05 Feb 2011

SIR – Your leading article (February 1) puts some powerful arguments in favour of selling off English woodland owned by the Forestry Commission. The Woodland Trust, however, disagrees with the assertion that sales would not have an impact on ancient woodland, “which would be protected”.

The trust is campaigning on this issue and on the need for the restoration of damaged ancient woods, precisely because there are weaknesses in existing protection mechanisms that urgently need to be reviewed, particularly in the light of new planning reforms.

Proof of this is that in the last decade alone the trust has fought cases involving more than 850 ancient woods threatened by development.

In the United Kingdom, more than 370 ancient woods are subject to a planning application that could physically damage them, fragment them or destroy them entirely.

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Once destroyed, it cannot be recreated with new planting. It is quite literally irreplaceable.

Sue Holden Chief Executive, Woodland Trust Grantham, Lincolnshire

SIR – As a long-time volunteer on the beautiful National Trust Castle Drogo estate in Devon, I know the extraordinary lengths the trust goes to in conserving its 1,400 acres of woodland and moorland and in making them accessible.

There should therefore be no doubt that if some of the forestry land were to be owned by this “private” landowner, it would be in good hands in perpetuity.

Gerald Penney Teignmouth, Devon

SIR – I do hope the new keepers of the woodlands take more care to prevent soil compaction from thousands of feet. It prevents water and nutrient uptake by tree roots. Wheels do even more damage.

The best way to preserve woodland is to leave it alone by excluding public access.

Sue Doughty Twyford, Berkshire

SIR – The disease Phytophthora ramorum (Comment, February 3) is of much concern to the forestry sector, which employs 110,000 people, adds £4 billion to the economy and is in the frontline of the fight against climate change.

We are working with the Forestry Commission in what is truly a cross-sector effort. However, the removal of large areas of forest cover in the fight against the disease also raises questions about ensuring that productive woodland – which underpins employment and investment in the sector – is not lost.

In recent years, such forests have declined and this disease threatens to accelerate that worrying trend. It is vital that action is taken to help woodland owners to replant areas lost to the disease with new productive forests.

Doing so will safeguard a virtuous cycle of forest management and production of renewable supplies of wood – and the rural jobs that rely on that.

SIR – Sir George Young thinks that people from poor families will be put off from becoming MPs (report, February 4). Surely a basic salary of £64,857.85 plus expenses will attract them.

It may not be much as far as Sir George is concerned, but for most ordinary people it’s a pretty good salary. The position offers long holidays, too. Perhaps he is too tall to be in touch with the grass roots.

Ian Thomas Aspley Guise, Bedfordshire

Full dress treatment

SIR – Dress codes (Letters, February 4) in hospital forbid neck-ties and demand short or rolled-up sleeves, although there is no evidence that ties or cuffs in themselves transmit infection.

A colleague in geriatric medicine found that some patients only recognise him as their doctor in a three-piece, complete with watch-chain and buttonhole.

I am all for cleanliness. But the only person who should be half-dressed during a consultation is the patient.

David Nunn FRCS London SE1

SIR – The worst thing about the trend for abandoning ties is having to look at retired gentlemen sporting scraggy necks.

Anne F. Bloor Burton Overy, Leicestershire

SIR – Bowler hats aren’t the only evidence of sartorial mistakes in period dramas (Letters, February 1). Whenever an actor plays the part of a soldier, the way the beret is worn appears to copy the style of either Frank Spencer or Benny Hill.

Mike Roberts Formby, Lancashire

Fire takes flight

SIR – Last year, my wife and I were in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for the Loi Krathong festival, when myriad miniature banana-leaf rafts bearing burning candles and incense sticks float down the Ping river and thousands of lanterns (Letters, February 4) rise into the sky, a fantastic spectacle.

We were told that Chiang Mai airport was closed for 24 hours during this time.

We flew out the following morning and, while still climbing, passed a lantern less than 50 yards off the starboard wing.

John Thornton Marlow, Buckinghamshire

Egypt defence alert

SIR – The Conservative government’s 1981 defence review plan to inflict wholesale reductions on the Navy’s surface fleet was reversed in the face of the Falklands war. But the conflict had been largely precipitated by this announcement, and the fact that the Navy’s only Antarctic patrol vessel, HMS Endurance, was part of the reductions.

So what signals is the Strategic Defence and Security Review sending out (by, in particular, emasculating our maritime capabilities, scrapping Nimrod and having carriers with no fighters or ground-attack aircraft) to those countries which may now be increasingly inclined to seek their own advantages?

The current crisis in Egypt was not foreseen in the recent defence review, and history shows that there will be any number of other surprise flash-points in the years to come.

What is predictable is that some of these will involve maritime choke points, through which oil and other vital, strategic raw materials must pass.

The Government should immediately suspend any further actions emanating from the defence review until such time as the full ramifications of these decisions have been reviewed by the House of Commons Defence Select Committee.

William Wilson London SE5

SIR – At last, I see a wind of positive change blowing through the Arab world, offering real hope to the rest of us.

What happens in Egypt will ripple through every Arab nation (Iran is not an Arab nation). Years of enlightenment through education have brought Arabs throughout North Africa and, to a lesser extent, the Gulf the realisation that their old ways were not necessarily the best.

I urge European and American politicians to keep their noses out and their opinions to themselves and wait for the Arab people to determine their own future. We must negotiate as equals.

Philip Congdon La Bastide-d’Engras, Gard, France

SIR – How should Britain respond to events in Tunisia and Egypt?

Send a military task force to Suez? Are you crazy?

Cut the BBC World Service? Well, yes, we are crazy.

The BBC World Service and training in our universities and other institutions are among the few valuable, lasting benefits that a post-imperial Britain can provide.

We should now redirect a substantial portion of the budget of the Department for International Development to increase and deepen BBC World Service coverage and to increase British education and training for foreigners.

W. H. M. Papworth Cambridge

To Rome

SIR – As long as you want to go to Lakeside, this road sign is of some use.

Sue Lister West Horndon, Essex

While the mouse is away

SIR – I bought a pack of three catnip mice for my cat. On the back of the packaging is the following advice: “Cats should be supervised at all times when playing.”

How do I stop her playing when I’m out? Any sensible suggestions welcome.

Anne Brown Bingley, West Yorkshire

Britain’s supine attitude to human rights laws

SIR – Many of our legislators and judges seem unfamiliar with the qualifiers that appear in the European Convention on Human Rights (Features, February 3).

The rights in Articles 8 (privacy), 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion), 10 (freedom of expression), and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) are in each case subject to qualifications.

Article 8 provides that the rights enshrined in it shall not be interfered with by a public authority “except… as is in accordance with the law and as necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedom of others.”

One would have thought that there were enough reasonable provisos contained in these words to prevent the frequent use of the Convention to justify the trampling of British laws. Votes for prisoners, indeed!

Jolyon Grey Upper Swell, Gloucestershire

'Bigoted’ foreigners

SIR – My 1831 edition of Woodbridge’s Rudiments of Geography describes Turks as “bigoted, ignorant and vicious” and the Portuguese as “superstitious, haughty and revengeful”.

At least the offence to Mexico (report, February 4) was caused by entertainment programmes rather than an educational textbook.